The tightening of safety standards that has been going on for some years now in the field of motor vehicles has made it necessary to develop passive safety devices intended to avoid or reduce the consequences of an accident on the driver and passengers of this vehicle. As regards in particular the driver of the vehicle, these devices need to be such that a frontal or oblique impact experienced by the vehicle is not passed on to the driver's ankle or leg, even if the driver is, for example, depressing the brake pedal as hard as he can.
Many devices have been developed to solve this problem. Documents DE-A-4,340,633 or DE-A-4,409,324 for example, disclose devices in which a cable pulls the pedal lever upwards so as to dislocate this lever from its support and move it out of the normal space occupied by the feet of the driver of the vehicle.
The drawback of such a set-up is that if the driver of the vehicle is depressing this pedal as hard as he can, his foot will then itself be pulled upwards, it then being possible for the driver's leg to sustain other damage, particularly to the tibia between the ankle and the knee.
Also disclosed, for example in documents DE-A-4,409,235 or DE-A-4,409,285, are devices in which the spindle providing articulation between the pedal and its mount is pulled out by a linkage system, thus releasing the mechanical connection between the pedal and the bulkhead. The drawback of such a set-up is the relative complexity of the linkage required, and a risk of poor operation if at that time the driver is depressing this pedal as hard as he can.